Monthly Archives: March 2016

Ring around the RosyPockets full of PosiesAshes, Ashes, we all fall down!

A childhood ditty, a childhood game but one familiar to most of us in some form or fashion.

It has a long history and versions exist in multiple languages.

There has been much speculation about origins and meanings. Some have suggested a pagan background. Still others a reference to the Great Plague or black death.

As dramatic as that might be—and the story is fairly convincing (rosy is a rash, posies are for the smell, and ashes signify death), that’s an explanation that only came into play around the mid-twentieth century. (If you are interested, Wikipedia has a fairly exhaustive article on its origins.)

Be that as it may, we have ingrained into our culture the idea that ashes signify death and decay. In fact, one doesn’t have to think very hard for the phrase Ashes to ashes; Dust to dust to enter our minds.

That particular expression is a melding of several Old Testament passages. When you add in the idea of cremation, ashes become an even more vivid description of dying, death, and decay.

Sunday is Easter.
Resurrection Sunday.
Resurrection Day.
A day in which most of the western Christian world focuses on the bodily resurrection of Jesus, the defeat of death, and the promise of new life, eternal life for those who belong to the Lord.

Sunday is about the hope we can know every day. The knowledge that our sins have been taken away. The faith certainty that even though we die, we will live again.

I don’t wish death on anybody. I hope we all get to live full and vibrant lives—secure in the knowledge that when this life ends, we have only just begun.

That’s resurrection promise.
That’s resurrection power.

But even more than that, I want you to know the hope of the resurrection now. I want you to know that even though your current situation or circumstances may be the ashes of defeat, heartache, pain, and struggle, you can know and experience resurrection power today.

Like this:

For His anger lasts only a moment, but His favor, a lifetime. Weeping may spend the night, but there is joy in the morning.
(Psalms 30:5 HCSB)

Sing with me, sing for the year Sing for the laughter, sing for the tear Sing with me just for today Maybe tomorrow, the good lord will take you away…
(Steven Tyler/ Aerosmith)

Hope. Sometimes it’s a rare commodity, but if you’ll pardon the bad pun, I hope you realize hope is something we all need.

As much as we might appreciate hope, we tend to throw the word/ concept around like it was a two-bit toy we aren’t all that impressed to begin with.

I hope my team wins.

I hope I get off work early.

I hope I get to see that movie.

I hope we have meatloaf for supper (I can dream, can’t I?).

I hope this, you hope that, we hope something entirely different together.

Hope, hope, hope…

More often than not, the things we hope for and the things we hope in are without much real value in the long term scheme of things.

And that verse at the top of this post? I admit, I have not much been a fan. Where I tended to view it through my frustration or pain, I missed the hope.

For forty years, Burger King convinced those of us who have come of age in a fast-food world that we could “have it our way!”

McDonald’s may have been even worse because they convinced the same folks (self included) that “we deserve a break today!”

And so here we are.

We want life quick, easy, cheap and convenient—and for the most part that is what we hope for.

When difficulties come our way, when life struggles happen, when grief assails, what then?

If you are like me, then you might realize even more struggle because our ability to endure, our ability to wait for the joy that comes in the morning has been compromised and often severely by our expectations.

But real hope—not a convenient hope—but a real and abiding hope takes a long-term approach.

Real hope understands that the difficulties of this life last but a night in the scope of eternity.

Real hope understands that morning is coming but morning may not yet be on our calendar.

How’s your hope? Mine is growing clearer, because in Jesus, hope is here!

Les Ferguson, Jr.
Madison/ Ridgeland, MS.

For His anger lasts only a moment, but His favor, a lifetime. Weeping may spend the night, but there is joy in the morning.
(Psalms 30:5 HCSB)